Gaslighting or Miscommunication? How to Tell the Difference

They tell you you're remembering it wrong. Again.

You replay the conversation in your mind, certain of what was said, but their version sounds so convincing. So definite. Maybe you are being too sensitive. Maybe you did misunderstand. Maybe the problem really is you.

But then doubt creeps in, not about the conversation, but about the doubt itself. Because if you're constantly questioning your own reality, whose reality are you living in?

Here's what I want you to know: Not every disagreement about reality is gaslighting, but gaslighting is never just a disagreement.

In my work with survivors of emotional abuse and people navigating complex relationships, I've seen how often these two experiences get conflated. The word “gaslighting" has become part of everyday language, and while that visibility matters, it's also led to confusion. Not every frustrating partner is a gaslighter. Not every miscommunication is manipulation. But gaslighting is real, it is serious, and it can dismantle your sense of self in ways that feel impossible to describe.

This blog is about helping you understand the difference, not so you can diagnose someone else, but so you can trust yourself again. If you've been questioning your perception for a while, you might also find my blog, You're Not Imagining It: Emotional Abuse Explained, helpful in validating what you've been experiencing.

What Gaslighting Actually Is

The term “gaslighting" comes from a 1944 film, titled Gaslight, in which a husband systematically manipulates his wife into believing she's losing her mind, dimming the gaslights in their home while insisting she's imagining it. It's a story about deliberate psychological manipulation designed to erode someone's trust in their own perception.

Clinically, gaslighting is a pattern of behaviour where someone manipulates another person into doubting their reality, memory, or sanity. It's not a single instance of disagreement. It's a systematic erosion of your sense of what's true.

Here's what makes something gaslighting rather than conflict:

Pattern over time. Gaslighting isn't one conversation gone wrong. It's a repeated dynamic where your version of events is consistently dismissed, denied, or rewritten.

Intent to destabilise. While we can't always know someone's conscious intent, gaslighting functions to maintain control. It keeps you off-balance, confused, and questioning yourself.

Power and control dynamics. Gaslighting thrives in relationships where one person holds or seeks power over the other. It's a tool of coercive control. If you want to understand how gaslighting fits into broader patterns of power and manipulation, my blog on Understanding Vulnerable Narcissism explores how these dynamics can show up in relationships.

Denial of your reality. Not just disagreement, but a refusal to acknowledge that your perception could be valid. Your feelings, memories, and experiences are consistently labelled as wrong, exaggerated, or imagined.

Making you question your sanity. Over time, you start to wonder if you can trust your own mind. This isn't ordinary self-doubt; it's a destabilisation that affects how you see yourself and the world.

What Gaslighting Actually Looks Like

Gaslighting doesn't always announce itself. It's often subtle, woven into everyday interactions. Here are some recognisable examples:

• “That never happened."

• “You're being too sensitive/dramatic/crazy."

• “Everyone else thinks you're the problem."

• “I never said that" (when you're certain they did).

• Rewriting history so consistently that you start to doubt your own timeline.

• Accusing you of gaslighting them when you try to set boundaries or name what's happening.

If you've heard these phrases repeatedly in your relationship, and they leave you feeling like you're losing your grip on reality, that's worth paying attention to.

What Miscommunication Is

Miscommunication is something entirely different. It's what happens when two people, both operating in good faith, genuinely perceive or remember an interaction differently. It's human. It's normal. And it doesn't require one person to be wrong for the other to be right.

Here's what contributes to honest miscommunication:

Different memories of the same event. Memory is reconstructive, not a recording. Two people can walk away from the same conversation with genuinely different recollections, and both can be telling their truth as they remember it.

Attachment styles affecting interpretation. An anxiously attached person might hear rejection in a neutral comment. An avoidantly attached person might miss an emotional bid entirely. Neither is lying; they're experiencing the interaction through different nervous system lenses.

Stress and overwhelm. When someone is dysregulated, their ability to process and retain information changes. They might not remember something the way you do because their brain was in survival mode. Understanding your nervous system's capacity can help distinguish between “I was overwhelmed" and “my reality is being erased". If this resonates, my blog on Why You React Differently on Different Days: Your Window of Tolerance might be helpful.

Different emotional experiences of the same moment. What felt hurtful to you might not have registered as significant to them. That doesn't mean your hurt isn't real; it means you had different experiences of the same event.

Talking past each other. Sometimes two people are having entirely different conversations without realising it. There's no malice, just misalignment.

What Miscommunication Looks Like

Here's what healthy (if frustrating) miscommunication can sound like:

• “I thought you said Thursday, not Tuesday."

• “I didn't hear it that way. Can you help me understand?"

• “I might have misunderstood. Let's talk through what happened."

• Both people are feeling confused or frustrated, not just one.

• Willingness to explore both perspectives without one being dismissed.

• Genuine curiosity instead of defensiveness.

Miscommunication leaves room for both people to be real. Healthy relationships have miscommunication. What matters is how you repair it.

The Gray Area (When It's Hard to Tell)

Not everything fits neatly into categories, and that's okay. Sometimes it's genuinely hard to distinguish between the two, especially in the early stages or when both people are dysregulated.

Here are some situations where it gets murky:

Early stages of gaslighting. Before the pattern is fully established, it might just seem like occasional conflict. You might not yet have enough data points to recognise the trend.

When someone is defensive but not necessarily abusive. Defensiveness isn't gaslighting. Some people get defensive when they feel criticised, but they're not trying to make you doubt reality; they're protecting themselves (often clumsily).

When both people have trauma responses activated. If you're both triggered, both might be perceiving a threat that isn't there, or misinterpreting each other's words and actions. Trauma can make communication messy.

When your own anxiety makes it hard to trust your perception. If you've been gaslit before, or if you have anxious attachment, you might be hypervigilant to signs of manipulation even when they're not there.

Questions to Ask Yourself

If you're unsure, these questions can help clarify what's happening:

• Is this happening repeatedly, or was it an isolated incident?

• Does this person take accountability for anything, or is it always my fault?

• Do I feel worse about myself after these conversations?

• Am I changing my behaviour to avoid their reactions?

• Do I feel safe bringing up concerns, or do I brace myself for backlash?

• Can we repair after conflict, or does it always end with me apologising?

If you answered "yes" to most of these, especially the last few, it's worth taking that seriously.

The Danger of Over-Diagnosing

Here's the nuance: not every frustrating partner is a gaslighter. Attachment anxiety can make miscommunication feel like manipulation. Someone being emotionally immature or avoidant isn't the same as someone deliberately destabilising you.

Precision matters because miscommunication and gaslighting require very different responses.

The Critical Differences

Intent vs Impact

With miscommunication, there's no intent to harm, though the impact can still be painful. You might feel hurt, frustrated, or misunderstood, but the other person isn't trying to destabilise you.

With gaslighting, the function of the behaviour is to confuse, control, or destabilise. Even if we can't read someone's mind, the pattern reveals the purpose: keeping you uncertain, dependent, or compliant.

Here's the truth: “they didn't mean it" doesn't erase impact. Your pain is real regardless of intent. But intent matters when assessing whether the relationship is repairable or whether it's a dynamic designed to keep you small.

Pattern vs Isolated Incident

One confusing conversation where you both walked away with different understandings? That's probably miscommunication.

Repeated conversations where your reality is denied, rewritten, or dismissed? That's a red flag.

If the pattern escalates over time, if it's not just disagreement but a systematic undermining of your perception, that's gaslighting.

Response to Being Called Out

This is one of the clearest markers.

When it's miscommunication, the response might be:

• "I didn't realise, help me understand what you experienced."

• Willingness to take accountability for impact, even without malicious intent.

• Genuine confusion rather than defensiveness.

• Interest in repairing the rupture.

When it's gaslighting, the response often includes:

• DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender): “Actually, you're the one being abusive by saying that."

• Doubling down on denial: “That absolutely never happened, and you're delusional for thinking it did."

• Making you feel crazy for bringing it up: “Why are you always starting drama?"

• Turning it back on you so that you end up apologising for having brought it up in the first place.

Sometimes what looks like stonewalling or shutdown during conflict isn't manipulation — it's a nervous system response. If you're wondering whether your partner's silence is avoidance or a freeze response, my blog on Why Your Partner Shuts Down: The Freeze Response can help you understand the difference.

Your Internal Experience

How you feel in the aftermath matters.

Miscommunication feels like:

• Frustration or confusion.

• Both people feeling misunderstood.

• Relief when you finally sort it out.

• A sense of mutual responsibility for the confusion.

Gaslighting feels like:

• You're losing your mind.

• Constant second-guessing of your own memory or perception.

• Feeling ‘crazy," “too sensitive," or “too much."

• Walking on eggshells to avoid triggering another reality-bending conversation.

• Only one person is ever “wrong", and it's always you.

• A slow erosion of your confidence and sense of self.

If you're reading this and recognising the second list, please trust that feeling. Your nervous system is trying to tell you something.

Why This Distinction Matters

For Healing

If it's miscommunication, relationship skills can improve things. Therapy, communication tools, and learning each other's attachment styles can create real change.

If it's gaslighting, skills won't fix an abusive dynamic. You can't communicate your way out of someone's need for control. Staying in a gaslighting relationship while trying to “work on communication" deepens the harm.

For Safety

Gaslighting often escalates. What starts as occasional reality-denying can become pervasive psychological abuse. Miscommunication might be frustrating, but it doesn't make you doubt your sanity or erode your sense of self.

Naming what's happening accurately helps you make informed decisions about your safety and future.

For Your Sense of Self

Gaslighting dismantles your trust in yourself. It teaches you that your perception is unreliable, your memory faulty, your feelings invalid. Healing means reclaiming the knowledge that you are a reliable narrator of your own experience.

Miscommunication can be frustrating, but it doesn't dismantle your reality. It's a bump in the road, not an erasure of self.

What to Do If You're Experiencing Either

If It's Miscommunication

• Practice clearer communication: use “I" statements, slow down, ask clarifying questions.

• Get curious about each other's perspectives instead of defending your own.

• Consider couples therapy or communication skills work with a trauma-informed therapist.

• Notice whether things improve with effort. Genuine miscommunication gets better when both people are trying.

If It's Gaslighting

• Trust your gut. If you feel like you're going crazy, pay attention to that feeling.

• Document conversations. Keep texts, emails, or journal entries so you have a record of what was actually said.

• Talk to trusted friends or a therapist who can reflect reality back to you. External validation matters when your internal compass has been scrambled.

• Consider whether this relationship is safe to stay in. Not all relationships are meant to be saved, especially when your well-being is the cost.

If you're finding it hard to leave despite knowing something isn't right, that confusion makes sense. Gaslighting often coexists with trauma bonding, which can make leaving feel impossible even when you know you should. My blog on Trauma Bonding: Why Letting Go Feels So Hard explores why ambivalence doesn't mean weakness.

Getting External Support

When you've been gaslit, you need people who believe you. Trauma-informed therapy can help you rebuild trust in your own perception. If safety is a concern, consider working with a counsellor who understands coercive control and can help you create a safety plan.

When clarity keeps slipping just out of reach.

Reclaiming Your Reality

You're Not "Too Sensitive"

If someone is repeatedly telling you you're too sensitive, too emotional, too much, that's not insight, that's a tactic. Your perception is valid, even if someone else tells you it isn't.

There's a difference between being wrong about something and being made to feel crazy. Healthy people can admit when they're wrong. They don't need to convince you that your reality doesn't exist.

Trust Yourself

Gaslighting teaches you to doubt your own mind, and rebuilding trust in yourself takes time. It starts small: noticing when something doesn't feel right, honouring that feeling instead of dismissing it, checking in with trusted people who can reflect reality back to you.

Over time, you can reconnect with your inner knowing. You can learn to trust that your memory, your perception, and your feelings are valid sources of information.

You Deserve Clarity

Healthy relationships don't leave you constantly confused. There's room for disagreement, different perspectives, and repair. But there's no room for one person's reality to be systematically erased.

You deserve a partner who respects your reality, even in disagreement. Conflict is normal. Chronic confusion is not.

A Final Thought

If you're reading this, wondering whether you're being gaslit, that question itself is telling. People in healthy relationships don't usually spend hours googling “Am I being manipulated?" because healthy conflict doesn't make you doubt your sanity.

You don't have to have it all figured out to take care of yourself. You don't need to prove beyond doubt that it's gaslighting before you're allowed to trust your discomfort.

With support, you can rebuild trust in your own perception. Miscommunication can be repaired with effort and goodwill. Gaslighting requires you to protect yourself first.

Your reality matters. Your feelings matter. You matter.

Contact Me

If parts of this felt uncomfortably familiar, you're not alone. Many survivors of emotional abuse spend years wondering if they were “overreacting" before recognising the patterns for what they were.

If you'd like support in untangling gaslighting from miscommunication, rebuilding trust in yourself, or navigating the aftermath of an abusive relationship, I'm here. You're welcome to book a session or reach out with any questions.

📧 kat@safespacecounsellingservices.com.au
📞 0452 285 526